Day 4: BFAS, Catworld

Day 1: Travel

Day 2: Hoover Dam Half Marathon

Day 3: Best Friends: tour/orientation/dogs

I'm recapping last week's vacation. Picking up where the last post left off:

Valentino was a great dog for a sleepover, and I hope he gets a home soon. The one thing we can feel good about though, is when we returned him in the morning and handed his leash over the caregiver, he was wagging his little nub of a tail as he was walking back into his building. Although it's great when as many animals as possible get adopted, they certainly have a great place to live at Best Friends until they find a home.

For this day at Best Friends, we were scheduled to volunteer in cats the whole day. After the cat safety video, we were assigned to Benton's Place for the morning session. This is a building with special needs cats.

In most of the buildings, the cats live together in rooms that have both indoor and outdoor sections. In addition, there are usually several cats who live in the lobby. In the lobby of Benton's place were Cagney & Lacey who were two young cats with neuorlogical issues. They were quite sweet and cute, especially Lacey who stumbled around as she walked but was a sweet, playful kitten.

After a little while with them, we were assigned to clean one of the cat's rooms, Tomato's room. Each building and each room are named for a cat from the sanctuary at some point. I'm not sure what all issues the cats in this room had but we had a good time re-arranging cat beds and perchs, cleaning all the surfaces and mopping. These cats have a great life as well. At one point, I was gathering up beds to brush off or throw into the laundry and I stumbled upon a cat under one of them. I don't think she was too happy with me disturbing her, but eventually she met up with her sister and snuggled into another bed.

Since it was Monday, we were able to eat lunch at the sanctuary where they offer a fabulous vegetarian lunch for $5. It was great and had amazing views that couldn't be beat. We were also lucky enough to overhear some other ladies talking who said something about Rocking V, which is a restaurant in town we were planning to eat at, at least once. Since we were in Utah in what is considered the off season, many places are either closed for the season or on off-season hours. It sounded like we should hit that restaurant that night since it would be closed the next two nights.

In the afternoon, we went to another cat building, the Colonel's Barracks and did another round of cleaning a room from top to bottom. The outdoor cat areas are cool because the rafters are designed so more feral cats can stay up there where they feel safe. The goal is to get everyone socialized but that takes time so up in the rafters there are plenty of cat beds, food, water and litter boxes. The caregivers wanted us to take a sleepover cat for the night, but since we were planning on hiking the next two days, it wasn't in our plans.

After finishing up volunteering for the day, we decided to take the time to visit Angel's Rest, which is where any animals who pass are buried - both from the sanctuary or anyone else who wants to bury their animals there. It's so peaceful and there are something like 5,000 wind chimes in there. It was a calm day so the sounds from the chimes were very faint.

We went to Rocking V that night and had an absolutely amazing meal. The owner of the restaurant was a hoot too! I ordered some wonderful banana bread pudding for dessert but I was so stuffed I couldn't force it all down. When I left a couple of bites, he told me I better eat it because his wife got angry if any food came back uneaten. A little while later (we visited the art gallery upstairs), as we were walking out, he said to me: "I saved your skinny asses and ate that last bite". As if I wasn't already wanting to return to the area sometime, having a meal at this restaurant could definitely be enough to make a trip worth it!

Next Up: Bryce Canyon National Park